By IANS
Kolkata : Quiet returned to Kolkata but the army continued to keep vigil Thursday, a day after unprecedented street riots over Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen’s stay in India and the atrocities in Nandigram led to arson and widespread violence.
“Everything is normal and there is no report of any untoward incident from anywhere,” said Kolkata Police Commissioner Gautam Mohan Chakraborty.
“There is no day curfew and so school and colleges and all other institutions are functioning normally. We have not decided on extending the curfew,” Chakraborty told IANS.
However, some schools in central Kolkata’s Park Circus area remained closed Thursday.
According to army spokesperson Colonel Alok Guha, four columns of soldiers were deployed in the affected areas.
A directionless agitation Wednesday that combined protest against the Nandigram atrocities with a section’s anger against granting Nasreen extended stay in India turned the heart of this metropolis into a scene of flaming vehicles and scampering schoolchildren, forcing the authorities to call in the army for the first time after the Babri Masjid demolition aftermath in 1992.
A road blockade called by the All India Minority Forum (AIFF), spearheaded by Congress leader and lawyer Idris Ali, spun out of control as thousands of frenzied people from central Kolkata’s Muslim-majority areas unleashed a free-for-all that went on for hours.
The mob torched one vehicle after another, including ambulances, trucks and police vehicles. Two local offices of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) were also attacked and several media personnel and cops injured.